There’s a name in Solar that everybody who’s ever been involved in module manufacturing surely knows, but many, many of you who have only interacted on the commercial side may have missed up to now - Meyer Burger. The 70 yr old Swiss company is, in many ways, the ‘brand behind the brand’, the veritable “intel inside” of the solar industry. It’s their carefully crafted and highly engineered production lines, afterall, that have provided scale, speed and quality assurance for many of those name-brand solar modules you are installing on homes and businesses (and fields) across America.
So, before we get into questions like “How do we make solar energy more efficient and more accessible on a global scale?” or “How might heterojunction technology reshape the renewable energy market?”, I think we’ll need to spend some of our conversation on Who exactly is this company that major manufacturers from Trina Solar to REC have relied on for decades.
Meyer Burger is a venerable Swiss technology leader with a rich 70-year history and over four decades of dedicated expertise in solar technology development. At the forefront of innovation, the company's strategic focus revolves around optimizing solar energy output while concurrently minimizing resource consumption. Their heterojunction technology and the SmartWire Connection technology, increases solar module output,and has little to no degradation over time. The company is continuously striving to break new grounds with plans to refine more efficient technologies, like Interdigitated Back Contact (IBC) cells, tandem modules, and the integration of perovskite into their tech portfolio of 6.7 GW. And, like many of their peers, they are expanding their manufacturing into the US with a facility in Goodyear, AZ coming online by the end of 2024 that will produce an additional 2 GW of solar modules annually and another facility for cell manufacturing in Colorado Springs that will produce roughly 1.7 million cells per year bringing more solar jobs to the US.
Ardes Johnson, is the President of Meyer Burger Americas, Ardes brings decades of experience from the energy sector starting with his time in the Navy to working for GE, SolarWorld, Tesla, and JLM Energy. He lays out how the company navigates the seen and unseen challenges of innovative development, scaling operations, and ensuring strategic growth in the volatile renewable energy market. Ardes' additionally covers embracing opportunities, building a potent culture of support, and the critical role of partnerships and customer commitments in scaling manufacturing plans.
But as Ardes rightly flags, these ambitious objectives hinge on policy stability. He urges stakeholders across the solar industry and policymakers to collaborate towards establishing long-term policy support for solar manufacturing in the United States to help achieve climate goals.
If you want to connect with today's guest, you’ll find links to his contact info in the show notes on the blog at https://mysuncast.com/suncast-episodes/.
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Mentioned in this episode:
CPS July 2024 V2
417: Arcadia raised $100M to democratize clean energy access! Kiran Bhatraju, CEO
416: You Don’t Get Hired for Your Expertise, Rain Bennett (Emmy-nominated Producer)
415: How do deregulated energy markets work? Jesson Bradshaw, CEO @ Energy Ogre
414: WRO & Logistics affecting your Solar pipeline? Supply chain expert Andy Klump of CEA is your guide
413: Deregulation, Solar in Choice Markets, & Motivation Mondays, w/Nathan Jovanelly, IGS Solar
412: What is Market-based Rate Authority (MRA)? Jesson Bradshaw of Energy Ogre
411: Auston Taber, CEO of Solar Support
410: The Final Debate: How do we create the 100% Clean Grid of the future?
409: Reid Wuntke, President of Energy Toolbase
408: 2021 Top Solar Changemaker: Kate Gold, Solar Landscape
407: CleanTech Podcaster's Roundtable Q3-'21
406: Solar lending insights from Dividend Finance CEO, Eric White
405: Solar waste or Second life?? Refurbish & Recycle with Janette Freeman of Fabtek Enterprises
404: How Sunlight Financial became a leading solar lender, with Matt Potere, CEO Sunlight Financial
403: Friends Don’t Let Friends Use 8760s, with Dr. Jennifer Newman of REsurety
402: From Astronautics to MicroGrids with Amy Simpkins of muGrid
401: How a Solar drone program can help you scale, with Scanifly CEO, Jason Steinberg
400: Celebrating 400!!! w/ Mike Silvestrini, CEO - Energea
399: Part 2, Reagan Farr, Silicon Ranch: Ten Yrs & How to Scale a Solar Development Co
399: Part 1, Reagan Farr, Silicon Ranch: How to Start a Solar Development Co
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